first conjugation

[lynxypoo.livejournal.com]

In the conjugation of писат, I understand why the ю becomes a у, but why does the с become a ш in the first place? Is it irregular, or does it have to do with part of the word, or what?

спасибо

Comments

[-xyx-.livejournal.com]

sometimes one letter changes to other.
сидеть (to sit) - сижу (i'm sitting on the chair)
it's also regular in spanish language.
(sorry for my english)

[happy-accidents.livejournal.com]

Irregular, I think you mean.

[svyatogor.livejournal.com]

may I ask which ю do you see turning into у? Regarding the change of с in ш there is no common rule to know, when it happens in verb roots. There are some that you just have to remember.

[-xyx-.livejournal.com]

i mean such changings are usual in russian and spanish.

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

Sorry me... but where do you put the stress in this verb? Because then the rules of conjugation will be different :-p

[hryu.livejournal.com]

In Russian you should always write "у" after "ш", there are only a pair of ecxeptions, "параШЮт" and so on - it's not originally russian word.
And after "ж" or "ш" you should write "и" and not "ы", such rules they learn in the first year of the school.

[-xyx-.livejournal.com]

жи-ши, ча-ща и чу-щу, I suppose :)

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

As others have said, the с->ш change is just how it conjugates (and you can see this in some other verbs too, e.g. искать->ищу, IIRC). That's just how some stems work, and you'll get more of a feel for it as you continue studying. Like _xyx_ mentioned, this sort of stem change is common in Spanish too, so if you've studied Spanish, think of it like that.

Are you ready to put on your linguist hat?

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

It's a systematic change, and it's natural to human language, which explains why you find it unrelated languages like Spanish. (It's in English, too. Try saying "tissue" or "pressure" without palatalizing the s's. Doesn't sound right, does it?) In the subsurface of many words, there's a morphophonemic {j} (a palatal consonant), that, when placed after a consonant, fuses with that consonant.

Certain consonant pairs yield predictable sounds, which you see in verbs like видеть>вижу, платить>плачу, просить>прошу.

Same holds true for irregular comparitives ending in a single -e (not regular comparatives such as новее).

крутой > круче, молодой > моложе, частый > чаше

As to why it happens? One could posit it just makes it easier to say.

If you get a chance, I recommend taking a Structure of Russian class. You learn TONS of things they didn't have time to explain in the language classes.

Consonant alternation

[brocster.livejournal.com]

but why does the с become a ш in the first place?

GREAT question! It's actually an easy one to answer... but you might not like the result. :-( Well, here goes...

It's all a question of the Indo-European verbal system (from which Common Slavic and then Russian developed). Based on my notes from my Russian Morphology class (many years ago), there were 5 "classes" of verbs in Indo-European (think of it as 5 different conjugation types -- present-day Russian, for comparison, only has two: either you get a -у, -ёшь, -ёт, -ём, -ёте, -ут pattern or a -у, -ишь, -ит, -им, -ите, -aт pattern [with the exception of, literally, a handful of irregular verbs]).

In four of these verb classes, a thematic vowel was added between the root of the verb and the "inflectional suffix" (i.e., the personal ending, such as -у, -ёшь, -ёт, etc.). Both regular verbs like делaть and (what we think of today as) irregular verbs like писaть were part of the verb class where [jo] or [je] was added as the thematic vowel. In addition to this thematic vowel, though, the делaть-type verbs also retained the suffix -a- (which was used to form the infinitive) throughout the conjugation, whereas the писaть-type verbs did not.

The result of this situation is as follows:

делaть (the root is "dēl-")
*dēl-a-tei (here we see the root + the infinitive-forming suffix -a- + the infinitive suffix "-tei")
--> *dēl-a-ti --> *dēlati --> d'elat' (делaть)

The first-person singular form:
*dēl-a-jo-m (root + infinitive-forming suffix + thematic vowel + first-person singular ending)
--> *dēl-a-jom --> *dēl-a-ju (the "om" became a nasal vowel and then, later, developed into "u" in Russian)
--> d'elaju (делaю)

The second-person singular form:
*dēl-a-jе-sei (root + infinitive-forming suffix + thematic vowel + second-person singular ending)
--> *dēl-a-je-si --> *dēl-a-joši (the "е" here developed into the vowel "o" in Russian, while the presence of "i" softened the "s" into "š")
--> d'elajoš(ĭ) (делaёшь, written today as делaешь because the "ё" is not stressed)


писaть (the root is "pis-")
*pis-a-tei (here we see the root + the infinitive-forming suffix -a- + the infinitive suffix "-tei")
--> *pis-a-ti --> *pisati --> p'isat' (писaть)

The first-person singular form:
*pis-jo-m (root + thematic vowel + first-person singular ending **Note that the infinitive-forming suffix -a- is not present in the conjugated forms. That will make all the difference.)
--> *pis-jom --> *pis-ju (the "om" became a nasal vowel and then, later, developed into "u" in Russian)
--> *piš-u (the presence of "j" next to "s" resulted in the mutation/softening of "s" to "š", just like what happened with the second-person singular ending -sei --> -si --> -ši)
--> p'išu (пишу)

The second-person singular form:
*pis-jе-sei (root + thematic vowel + second-person singular ending)
--> *pis-je-si --> *pis-joši (the "е" here developed into the vowel "o" in Russian, while the presence of "i" softened the "s" into "š")
--> *pišoši (the presence of "j" next to "s" resulted in the mutation/softening of "s" to "š")
--> p'išoš(ĭ) (пишёшь, written today as пишешь because the "ё" is not stressed)


So, that's the story... or at least that's what my notes from class way back when tell me. (I welcome any corrections and apologize for any mistakes.)

As for dealing with modern-day Russian, the individuals who said that the с --> ш change (among others) is just part of the language and thus needs to be learned/memorized are, indeed, correct. The only addition I would like to make would be the following:

...continued in next post...

Part 2...

[brocster.livejournal.com]

Think of the first-person singular ending as -у instead of -ю (so that, with писaть, you're not changing -ю to -у but, instead, simply adding the normal -у to the present-tense stem). The reason that you often see -ю for the first-person singular ending is actually either:

1) due to a -й- that is part of the verbal stem: think of it as "делaй + у" instead of "делa + ю". After all, how else would you explain the following first-person forms: жив-у, ид-у, стaн-у?, or

2) to show that the final consonant of the stem is soft (as seen in the infinitive form): so, for example, with говорить the -и- shows us that the -р- is soft, and so any vowels added to this stem must be "soft" as well -- think of it as "говорь + у" --> говорю.

But that's just my advice. You're certainly welcome to do with it what you will.

I hope you enjoyed our trip down Indo-European/Common Slavic Lane. Let me know if you have any questions, and best of luck with your Russian studies!

- Andrew

[philena.livejournal.com]

You trouble-maker! :)

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

lol